Joy Katz on Poetry and Grief, Small Demons May Close, and More

by
Evan Smith Rakoff
11.6.13

Every day Poets & Writers Magazine scans the headlines—from publishing reports to academic announcements to literary dispatches—for all the news that creative writers need to know. Here are today’s stories:

Start-up Small Demons will shutter this month unless it finds a buyer. Former Yahoo! vice president Valla Vakili founded the company in 2009. (Bookseller)

The Guardian reports 42 percent of small publishers in the United Kingdom closed shop in 2012.

“Poetry felt drained of its possibilities by the time I stood graveside.” In a personal essay for the Poetry Foundation, Joy Katz examines the uses of poetry in relation to grief.

Emily Temple gathered fifty challenging books for avid readers, including Nightwood by Djuna Barnes, Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, and David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. (Flavorwire)

Meanwhile, GalleyCat showcases the many one-star Amazon reviews of Melville’s classic American novel Moby-Dick.

For the Nieman Storyboard series “Why’s this so good?” writer Casey N. Cep considers Ian Frazier’s recent New Yorker essay “Hidden City.”

Kevin C. Fitzpatrick—author of Under the Table: A Dorothy Parker Cocktail Guide—explains how to make drinks that could have been enjoyed by the famed wit of the Algonquin Round Table. (Huffington Post)

Margaret Atwood will not blurb your book. (Melville House)